Sway
by meilin-m
Summary: A woman from the 50th century arrives through the Cardiff Rift and threatens Jack's leadership of Torchwood. Set between Countrycide and Greeks Bearing Gifts, with an epilogue set just after End of Days.


**Prologue**

"This isn't going to work, is it, Jack."

Jack Harkness shook his head. "No, Shae, I think we're done." Just keep her talking till the rest catch up, he thought. There was a wind blowing off the bay onto the Plass, and the late night air had a bite to it; he was glad of his heavy wool great coat, but wished on the whole that he'd left it, and not his gun, behind.

"Mm." Shae Han gave a small smile and tilted her blonde head. "Such good times, though, don't you think? I had fun," she said, putting her free hand over her heart. Her gun hand remained steady, her firearm trained firmly on Jack.

"C'mon, sweetheart," coaxed Jack. "Put it down. Time to go back to the Hub."

"Oh. No. No, I don't think so," she answered, laughing.

"And just where do you intend to go, Shae?" he shouted. "You don't know this time as well as you think you do. You have no friends, no money and no resources, and I can turn an entire official security apparatus toward tracking you down. How are you planning to survive, let alone stay off my radar"

"All of your training came from me one way or another, 'Jack,'" she shot back, "watered down, at that. And you seem to have taken care of yourself just fine here. Soldier, spy--whore if I have to, I'm sure you've done all three. I'll be fine." She shifted position, placing her long legs precisely. "As hot as bondage might be with you, my love, a cell in the lower levels of the Hub just doesn't work for me long term. Sorry. Not going back." She took aim, her hazel eyes just a little too shiny in the Plass lights. "And I _am_ sorry, Jack."

She pulled the trigger.

* * *

**Chapter One: one month previous**

"It's close." Toshiko Sato's voice sounded over the comm network. "You're nearly on top of it." Jack Harkness could hear her fingers clattering over the keyboard. She paused. "It hasn't been there long."

"OK, team, spread out, keep your eyes open." Jack flicked open the fastening on his Webley's holster and quickly noted everyone's positions as his people walked onto Penarth Pier: Owen Harper and Gwen Cooper on his right, Ianto Jones on his left.

"How're we supposed to spread out on a pier, exactly?" said Owen. "Fucking aliens, can't just show up in the daytime some place a little warmer and a little closer."

"Look at it this way," said Jack. "Whatever it is, it's not going to get past us, unless it's aquatic. This shouldn't take long." And a good thing, he thought, pulling his great coat a little closer.

"Somewhere along there's a plaque with my parents' name on it," said Gwen, shining her torch down on the decking. "We bought them one for their 40th anniversary, they met here--"

"C'mon, Gwen, stay focused," snapped Jack. She guiltily brought her head back up, looked over at Owen and gave him a little grin. He jerked his head minutely at Jack and rolled his eyes, and she suppressed a giggle.

"There," said Ianto, at Jack's shoulder. He nodded straight ahead.

At the end of the pier stood a woman, looking up at the pennants whipping in the wind. She spotted them and began walking gracefully but quickly up the pier, arms hugging herself close against the cold.

She was a young-looking woman, blonde and lithe, in nowhere near enough clothing for the weather and showing it, shivering in the cold blue lamp light. She stopped just short of them, pushing her hair back behind her ears and smiling, so warmly that all of them found themselves leaning slightly in towards her.

Her expressive eyes flicked across all four and quickly settled on Jack. She walked up to him, reaching both hands out as if in greeting, and began to speak. For a split second, Jack froze before his training kicked in. He put an appropriately puzzled look on his face and, seeming hesitant, took the proferred hands. They were very soft, and very cold.

He spoke slowly and carefully. "I'm sorry, we don't understand you"

The woman started, and the smile grew wider. "Oh!" she answered. "Have I stumbled into a training exercise?" Her English was Received Pronounciation perfect. "Very well, then! I'm afraid I don't really know where I am or how I got here. Can you please direct me? I'm quite chilly."

Jack took off his great coat, slipped it around the shivering woman and steered her back toward the pavilion and the car park beyond. "What is it?" Tosh said eagerly in his ear. "You've got it, whatever it is. What is it?!"

* * *

**Chapter Two**

Toshiko turned from her workstation to see the team straggle through the gates of the Hub, Ianto heading immediately for the kitchen to put the kettle on, Owen and Gwen following behind more slowly, talking to each other in near-whispers and grinning. Wrapped in Jack's great coat was a strange woman--must be our anomaly, thought Tosh, looking her over as the woman handed Jack back his coat.

She was fairly tall, with a clear, fair complexion that complemented her bobbed honey-blonde hair. Intelligent, large, slightly sleepy hazel eyes in an oval face, a classic nose, a generous mouth set over a dimpled chin. A beautiful, sensual face.

Her clothing style was not a fashion Tosh recognized. She looked as if she'd come from a party, and her clothes fitted over her curvy but slender figure as if they'd been custom-made. They probably were, thought Tosh; she had the air of a woman accustomed to both comfort and command.

She realized with a start that the woman was returning her gaze with an amused one of her own, just as appraising--perhaps more so. Something about it made Tosh blush and look down. When she peered back up over her glasses, the woman had turned her head and was answering a question from Owen. "I'm human--mostly," she was saying. "My name is Shae Han."

Owen scribbled on his clipboard. "First name Shae--S-H-A-E? Right. Tosh?" said Owen with a nod in her direction.

"Already on it," said Tosh, hacking her way through her innumerable databases for matches.

"I have a suspicion," said Shae quietly, "that you won't find me." She turned away from Owen toward Jack. "Where am I, exactly, and perhaps more to the point: WHEN am I?" Owen quirked an eyebrow at his boss over Shae's head.

"You're in the city of Cardiff, in Wales, the United Kingdom, on Earth, in the early 21st century," Jack answered. "You fell through a rift in time and space."

She nodded, slowly. "And I take it you have no way of sending me back to my own time."

"None," said Jack.

"What do you propose to do with me, then?" she said. "I doubt you'll just let me wander the streets--the date was 4982 for me until just about an hour ago."

"That," said Jack, "does present a problem. Come on up to my office. We'll get you a cup of something warm and go over a few things. Ianto! Tea in my office, please!" he called.

"I think I'll need something stronger than tea," Shae murmured as she followed him up the stairs.

"Oi," called Owen, "I need to examine her, an' I want to go home sometime in the next week."

"Go home, then, Owen," Jack said, ushering her into his office. "She'll be here in the morning, I promise."

"She seems very accepting of her situation, don't you think?" said Tosh, brows slightly furrowed as she watched the door close behind them.

"Hm," said Owen, grabbing his coat. "Nice to have a reasonable one for once. Walk you to your car, Gwen?"

* * *

**Chapter Three**

Shae accepted the cup of tea from Ianto with a dazzling smile, looking up into his eyes so frankly that he turned away a little more sharply than he'd intended, handed Jack his cup, excused himself quietly, and hotfooted it down the stairs.

Shae smiled at Jack, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs. _That one is a little too tightly wound for his own good, I suspect,_ she said in the sibilant language she spoke on the pier.

Jack frowned. "I'm sorry, but--" he began in English.

_Please. Don't insult me,_ Shae continued smoothly, again in her language. _We both know very well you speak the Common._ She sipped her tea, studying him. _They don't know when you're from, do they?_ He didn't answer. _No, I don't think they do. I am willing to wager that I know more about you than they do._

Jack put his feet up on his desk. "Any time you want to start talking sense, ma'am, I'm willing to listen," he said in English.

_Oh, sense is what I'm talking now, 'Jack,' which cannot possibly be your actual name unless your parents were historians and I doubt that. You're good at this, but I'm better. And do you want to know how I know that?_ She leaned forward, still speaking in the Common. _Because I am a trainer for the Time Agency--or will be. And you have all the hallmarks of an Agent._

Jack kept his face impassive, and gave her an open-handed shrug. "No idea."

_You recognized the Common when I spoke it on the pier. And I recognize your body language, your speech patterns--the American-inflected English you speak--_ and here she switched to English, mimicking Jack's accent exactly--"I helped write that program." She resumed in the Common. _But I don't know you. That tells me that you are from my future. I probably trained your teacher. Oh, that'll be amusing, figuring out which one of my students trained you._

Jack took his feet off his desk. "All I caught is that you helped write a program. Look, I'm beginning to lose patience here--"

_Me too._ Shae stood up, crossed behind his desk and grabbed his wrist. _How fucking stupid ARE you?_ she said, waving his own wrist in front of his face--the wrist with the vortex manipulator strapped to it. _How do you explain this? You can't, not to me. You can tell those innocents who work for you this is a fancy watch, but I know better. So can we stop this, please?_

Jack snatched his wrist away and glared at her, then let out a sigh, running his hand through his hair. _Yeah, fine,_ he answered in the Common. _Wow. I haven't spoken the Common in...in a very long time,_ he added, blinking. _Quite honestly, I wasn't sure I still could any more._

He rose from his chair and retrieved a brandy decanter and two glasses from a shelf behind his desk, setting them down on the desk with a thunk. _I think at this point it's time for that 'something stronger than tea' for both of us._

Shae took the glass he offered and saluted him with it, taking a small, appraising sip. _Mmm! Not bad. So. Assignment or fun?_

_Neither. I'm stranded, like you. My manipulator is broken. And I'm not with the Agency any more. Long story._ He took a drink. _I know a little about you, though. You may be pleased to know that your name was long remembered after you left the Agency yourself. 'One of the best Time Agents in history,' my trainer said._ Shae smiled. _You will be less pleased to know that after you disappeared in 4982 you never returned. It was widely believed you 'went native' and just took off for a past era. I was accepted into the Agency in 5023._

Shae was quiet for a long time, watching the low lights dance in the cut crystal of her glass. _So I really am stranded here._ Jack nodded. _I was hoping... Knowing you were from closer to my time, I was hoping there might be a way to get back. Fuck._ She downed the rest of the brandy in one go and shook her head. _How have you managed, stuck in this backwater?_

_I've made myself useful. Cardiff sits on a rift in time and space. Torchwood keeps track of the people and objects that fall through it. Fits perfectly with my training._

_And they don't know, your team, about you, do they? I'm right about that._

_You are. I would appreciate your keeping that secret, please._ Jack finished his brandy. "I would also appreciate it if we began speaking English, and kept speaking it. We are the only two who speak the Common in this time, that I'm aware of, anyway. You'll need the day-to-day English practice."

"The only two..." murmured Shae, her eyes filling but not spilling over. "Yes. Well. I suppose I will." She stared off to one side, unable to meet Jack's gaze. "So what happens to me now?"

"When we get travelers from the future, we assess their risk of disrupting the timeline and make up our minds then. So far we haven't had anyone come through who's posed any threat at all. You, on the other hand..."

"I have all kinds of technical knowledge that could really play hob with the timeline."

Jack nodded. "You do. Normally we'd keep you in a cell in the lower levels for the rest of your natural life, or we'd retcon you if at all possible--we'd wipe your memories. But that doesn't always work, especially with the kind of training you've had. And that kind of massive memory wipe--I'm just not comfortable with it."

"Why not?"

"Do you want me to wipe your memories"

"Of course not. But if I were you, I'd do it anyway."

"Yeah. Well, you're not me." He rose from his chair. "C'mon. Time to find you a bunk for the night downstairs."

"You're locking me up?" she said in a small voice. He looked down at her. The tears that had welled up earlier had finally spilled over.

He sighed. "Shae, I don't have any choice."

"Where do you sleep?"

"You can't sleep with me."

"It's obvious that you usually sleep with the pretty one--Ianto, was it?--who brought the tea, but couldn't I just be with you two tonight?"

"You-- Ianto doesn't stay here with me."

_Please,_ she said in the Common. _You understand what is happening to me. I just--I don't want to be alone. I'm going to be alone the rest of my life. But not tonight._

Her hazel eyes looked up pleadingly into Jack's blue ones. In her dainty, expensive party clothes, she looked very fragile, and very alone.

Jack smiled. "You really ARE better than me at this."

She burst out laughing. "I assure you, though, the loneliness is genuine. As are the tears. I've never felt so alone in my life."

"I'd have to handcuff you to the bed."

"Wouldn't be the first time," she grinned, and wiped her eyes.

"From what I've heard about the legendary Shae Han, I wouldn't expect so. C'mon. I'll get you settled."

Jack showed her down the manhole to his private space, watched her undress, and tucked her into his bed, cuffing one wrist to a ring in the wall. He kissed her gently on the forehead. "I'll be back."

"Jack?" she called. He turned on his way up the ladder. "I really wouldn't mind sharing the bed with you and Ianto if you had plans."

He met her wide smile with one of his own and shook his head. "Not this time. You will NOT believe these people when it comes to sex," he said, resuming his climb.

When he returned from kissing Ianto good night with a promise for later, he found her sound asleep, curled around her handcuffed wrist. He shucked his clothes down to his vest and pants, slipped in beside her and watched her sleep.

* * *

**Chapter Four**

"I don't like it," said Ianto as he locked up the SUV. Shae walked toward the Hub with Gwen, both laughing, Owen trailing slightly behind them admiring the view. Ianto fell in step with Jack, bringing up the rear.

"Owen looked her over. She's not carrying anything," said Jack. "Tosh says she's been very helpful with the last of her calculations on Rift mechanics. She's saved Gwen's life--twice. And Shae's proven to me that her work in her time would be invaluable to us here. She's also a good shot."

"Too good."

"Fine, she shot that Weevil when she wasn't supposed to. But she did help Owen with the autopsy." Jack studied Ianto from the corner of his eye. "Yan," he said quietly. "Don't be jealous. You know where you stand with me, and you know what I am."

"What I don't know is what _she_ is," said Ianto urgently. "And I don't think you do, either."

"I know exactly what she is, Ianto." And I can't tell you why, he thought. "Look. If you can't trust her, trust me. It's going to be all right."

Shae looked back at them as if her ears were burning, flashed them a bright smile, and followed Gwen into the shop that served as the Hub's outer office. Ianto set his jaw. "It's only been two weeks. I just don't like it."

Toshiko was waiting as they entered the Hub proper, almost up on her toes. Shae draped one arm around her shoulders, pulling her close and kissing the top of her head affectionately as they walked back to Tosh's workstation, Tosh talking a mile a minute.

Ianto shot Jack a meaningful look and disappeared into the kitchen. Jack sighed inwardly and made a note to talk with Shae about 21st century ideas on fraternization.

Two hours later, Owen and Gwen had managed to leave almost at the same time in their usual falsely casual way, and Tosh had wandered out not long after, absently muttering formulae to herself. Jack and Shae were in his office, running the after-action reports. Ianto was beginning his end-of-day routine, emptying trash bins and gathering up cups, shooting near-despairing looks up at the office from time to time.

"You really need to do something about that boy," said Shae, looking down into the Hub from her perch on the edge of Jack's desk. "He's jealous! I haven't seen that in so long I'd almost forgotten what it looked like." She settled into a chair, crossing her long legs. "You need to encourage him to turn to one of the others now and again."

Jack shook his head. "That's not how it works in this time period."

"Same-sex relationships aren't 'how it works' here either, at least officially, and that's not stopping you." She gave him a critical look. "Really, Jack, what's one of the first things you were taught at the Agency--or in school, for that matter?"

"Sex among teammates creates unit cohesion."

"Just so."

He leaned back in his chair and let out an exasperated grunt. "I can't do that here!"

"They're doing it without you." Jack regarded her quizzically. "Please. Are you so unobservant you haven't noticed Owen and Gwen? Oh--apparently you are," as Jack's eyebrows arched. "What else haven't you observed about your people?"

"I don't know," said Jack flatly, "you tell me, Master Trainer Han?"

"Very well." She leaned forward in her chair. "Let's start with Owen, shall we?" She ticked him off on a finger, keeping count. "So cynical and misanthropic, which means of course that he's a crushed romantic. Around Gwen he's almost soft. They've been shagging each other for at least a month, but she's not enough. He needs something to believe in.

"Gwen." She ticked off the second finger. "Completely at sea--overwhelmed. You seduced her into this bizarre world and then didn't finish the job. So she turns to Owen for some kind of anchor. You tell ME how that's going to go.

"Toshiko." She ticked off the third finger. "The loneliest girl I have ever met. She's so lonely she's in love with Owen, who doesn't even notice she exists. She is your weak spot right now, believe it.

"And then there's Ianto." She ticked off the final finger. "You've shagged him into abject slavery. He lives to serve you. Fun in the short term, but long term it'll pose problems for unit cohesion, unless you can convince all four of them to live to serve you, and each other. And why you haven't, I can't understand."

"And you've found all this out by observation, have you?"

Shae snorted. "I learned most of it by taking Tosh out for a drink. I'm warning you, that girl is going to get you into trouble." She stood up and leaned on the desk. "They need you--all of you--and all of each other."

"You know very well why I can't do that."

"The strongest army is an army of lovers, Jack."

"An army--we're not an army! You're questioning the way I run this place? After _two weeks_ you think you know more than I do."

"I knew more than you do when I walked through the Rift!" she hissed.

Jack stood up, glaring. "This conversation is over." He strode to the door of the office. "I could use some target practice."

"Falin," Shae said, crisply.

Jack stopped at the door. "What?"

"Your trainer. Your trainer was Falin Barr, am I right?"

Jack stared. "Yes."

"Worst. Student. I. EVER. Had," she spat. Jack's face contorted briefly and he slammed out the door, taking the stairs at a trot and ignoring Ianto's concerned enquiry as he headed for the firing range.

* * *

**Chapter Five**

Shae watched Jack go, and sighed in frustration. It's always the worst when they 'go native,' she thought, and Jack had spent far too long in the past. She would see what she could do herself. In the meantime, best to check on her fallback.

She walked down the stairs into the main floor of the Hub and over to Gwen's abandoned workstation, checking on Ianto's whereabouts as she did. He was safely occupied out of sight in the kitchen.

In a few quick keystrokes, she checked on a program she was running in the background on Gwen's computer, smiled wistfully to herself, and dismissed it from the monitor before Ianto returned to the floor. Gwen would never find it, and it had already told Shae what she wanted to know.

When Ianto returned, he found her emptying the remaining trash bins. "Don't," he said brusquely, taking the bag from her hand.

"I'm at loose ends. I'm only trying to keep myself busy."

"You're only trying to ingratiate yourself," Ianto snapped. "I'm not having it."

"Ianto." Shae put a gentle hand on his arm, and he stiffened further. "I'm sorry I've been monopolizing Jack's time. I've had so much to adjust to. I promise I'm not here to take him away."

"You couldn't if you tried. No one could."

"Because no one loves him as much as you do?"

Ianto returned her gaze with sudden intensity in his gray eyes. "Because no one can own him. Not me, not anyone." He turned away, lugging the trash bag. "I suggest you not try."

"I never should," said Shae, strolling after him calmly. "Do you follow your own advice?" Ianto didn't answer. "Then let me give you some new advice. Perhaps you'll have better luck with it. There's a saying in my time. I learned it when I was quite young: 'Taking solace among other lovers turns jealousy to joy. To share your lovers is to share yourself.'"

"And what would you know of it?" he answered, despair creeping into his voice. He braced his hands on the wall above the trash incinerator chute, not turning around.

"I've shared all of my lovers. Every last one of them. And in so doing, I've shared myself. There's such sorrow in you, I can feel it--it's more than just Jack, and it's more than Jack alone can take from you." She covered one of his hands with hers.

"Don't," Ianto grated, trying to shake her off, but she took his wrist in her surprisingly strong grip and would not let go. "I know what you're trying to do, and I don't want it."

"No, but you need it," she said, pressing softly against his side. "You need to feel wanted--to be wanted. To take another's loneliness from her, and let her take yours. To share in a love for another." He would not meet her steady gaze. "Your lover's lover," she whispered, "can be your lover, too."

Shae traced the fingers of her free hand against Ianto's cheek. He breathed in sharply, and she turned his face to hers. "Don't," he began to say softly, his gray eyes pleading. She took a kiss from his lips before the word fully left them.

When Jack emerged from the shooting range, Shae had Ianto pressed back against the tile wall. His face was flushed and his eyes were closed, his hands buried under her silk blouse. She was kissing him, hard, one of her legs forced between his and her hands in his hair, clearly in control. Ianto broke the kiss with a moan, but she wouldn't let him pull away, studying his face with lidded hazel eyes.

"No one sees you, do they? Not like he does. Not like I do. I see you as he does, Ianto." She kissed him again, pulling off his tie and slipping her hands into his shirt. "We see your intelligence, your faithfulness, your competence, the passion you keep so tightly locked up inside. We see that, and we want to let it out," she said, slipping his shirt off his shoulders. Ianto's breath was ragged, his gray eyes a bit wild as her hands skimmed his chest--

And then he looked up and met Jack's deep blue eyes, boring into them both. Ianto let out a sound like a sob; Shae felt him go slack against her. She turned to Jack, smiling up at him smugly. "Don't we, Jack?"

He was on them in two strides. He pulled Shae off Ianto by the scruff of her neck, holding her by the blonde hair at her nape as he put his free arm around Ianto's waist and kissed him deeply. She tried to pull away, and he shook her until she stopped, never taking his mouth from Ianto's.

Jack finally broke the kiss. Ianto leaned, stunned, against the wall, lips swollen from kisses. Jack turned to Shae, his eyes blazing, his breath coming hard, and pulled her to him in a brutal kiss. She returned it, smiling as she bit his lips.

------

Sleep finally found them in Jack's bed. Ianto had drifted off with one arm behind Jack's head, the other wrapped around Shae's shoulders, her dark blonde hair fanned across her face. Jack sat up, watching them both, and reached across Ianto. He gently tucked Shae's hair behind her ear, and she opened one eye and smiled lazily.

_This is good, Jack,_ she said in the Common. _This is good._

He lifted her hand from Ianto's chest and kissed it. "Go to sleep, Shae." She closed her eyes.

* * *

**Chapter Six**

Shae knew it wouldn't last, even when she lay breathless between Ianto and Jack after nights of near-delirious lovemaking officially disguised as running diagnostics on the internal CCTV system. Perhaps especially then, as it inevitably led to talk of the other three.

Jack soundly rejected any further attempts to bring the team into the alignment she was convinced they needed. What had he said out of Ianto's earshot? Oh yes. "If you lay one finger on Tosh I'll break it." Fine, she'd answered, just do the job yourself and Ianto and I'll join in later. Owen and Gwen were too far gone into their couplet; their exclusivity was leading to mistakes on the job and distraction for the rest of the team. If Shae'd had her way she'd have cashiered the both of them.

But not Jack. He was strangely distracted, and not by her. All she could think was that Jack was too much a part of this time now. And no matter how much she tried to shake this primitive century off him, he would wrap it back around himself like his wool great coat.

Teaching was a habit she couldn't shake, either. The latest discussion had ended in another argument over his leadership skills and her disparaging analysis of same, ending with her pronouncement that if he had brought back any one of his after-action reports to her at the Agency she would have had him fired on the spot.

When the time came for it all to end, Shae already had everything in place to make sure it was on her terms. She just hadn't expected it to be so soon.

It was late one night when it was time to go. She slipped out under the pretense of leaving something in the SUV, taking nothing with her but her hidden sidearm--not even a coat.

Ianto was at Gwen's workstation, poring through its logs. "I don't understand, Ianto, it's slowed to a crawl," she'd said.

"Jack," said Tosh suddenly. "Come look at this." She nodded at her monitors. "I glanced at CCTV on the Plass and look--it's Shae, and she's not headed for the car park."

"Shit." Jack grabbed his great coat and ran for the emergency lift directly up into the Plass. "Tosh!" he yelled as he rose, "dig into that workstation! Shae's done something to it!"

Just as he reached the top, he heard Tosh's voice in his earpiece--"Jack, I found it--she's been running a program in the background, I'm not sure what it's searching for, but it's a complicated algorithm--oh! We're in lockdown! I must have triggered something!"

Jack ran toward Shae, face grim.

She heard him coming and was ready, her gun drawn.

"And just where do you intend to go, Shae?" Jack was shouting at her. Keep the gun steady, Han, she thought, though inside all she wanted to do was put it down and run to him.

If she did, she'd never get out of the Hub alive again. And she could not stay down there, locked up with the Weevils and the stray sad alien. Though she and Jack were the only two of their kind in this time, one of them had to go, and it wasn't going to be her--and it was going to hurt like hell.

She had made contact with the Minister for Defence, and she was going to London. An official car waited for her not far away to take her there. She had a job. She would survive, and she would be free.

"I _am_ sorry, Jack," Shae said. And then she pulled the trigger.

* * *

**Epilogue**

So many secrets in just one year, Gwen thought. We had all been carrying so many secrets. Ianto and his doomed, hidden girlfriend. Her and Owen. Tosh and her alien seducer. And Jack, mysterious Jack, who let a strange, charming woman from the future into Torchwood, lost her, and then refused to discuss her.

All the secrets revealed, one by one, until the ultimate secret: Jack died and came back to life. And then he disappeared. The disciples got 40 days with their master when he came back to life, why did we get so few? she thought. I miss him.

On the monitor at Owen's workstation, the news was on but no one was really paying attention to it. The presenter was recapping the arrival of new Prime Minister Harold Saxon at the newly rebuilt Number Ten Downing Street. Gwen gave it a cursory glance--and froze.

"Owen. Tosh." Something about her voice called their attention quickly to her. They stared into the screen with her. "Behind the Prime Minister. The blonde."

"Oh my God," gasped Tosh. "It's Shae." She looked blankly at Gwen. "Who do we call?"

Ianto turned toward the three of them, hand on his earpiece. "It's the Prime Minister," he said, blinking. "We've been ordered to the Himalayas..."


End file.
